WASHINGTON – If you can’t judge a book by its cover, maybe you can’t judge one by its title, either.
That’s certainly the case with the seven books on the shortlist for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year — a contest run by “The Bookseller” magazine since 1978 that celebrates the best books with odd titles from around the world, according to TheBookseller.com.
For example, a book called “Cooking with Poo” could lead one down a very wrong path, until it’s discovered on closer examination that “poo” is Thai for “crab” and also the nickname of the book’s author.
That said, “Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World” seems pretty self-explanatory.
The seven finalists for the award were published in 2011 and pared down from 64 submissions.
Check out the list below courtesy of TheBookseller.com, and follow this link to vote.
Finalists:
- “A Century of Sand Dredging in the Bristol Channel: Volume Two” by Peter Gosson
- “Cooking with Poo” by Saiyuud Diwong
- “Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World” by Aino Praakli
- “The Great Singapore Penis Panic: And the Future of American Mass Hysteria” by Scott Mendelson
- “Mr Andoh’s Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge” by Stephen Curry and Takayoshi Andoh
- “A Taxonomy of Office Chairs” by Jonathan Olivares
- “The Mushroom in Christian Art” by John A. Rush
(h/t The Book Bench)
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